


The Delusion of Living

by You_Light_The_Sky



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Asylum of the Daleks Rewrite, Coping with Grief, Episode: s07e01 Asylum of the Daleks, Gen, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Post Angels Take Manhatten, Post Reichenbach, Wholock, this is not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2012-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-18 16:51:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/You_Light_The_Sky/pseuds/You_Light_The_Sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He gets a call from a dead man, a call screaming one word, “Daleks!” Rewrite of 'Asylum of the Daleks' with Sherlock and John (a former companion.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note: In this AU we have to assume that there aren’t any books written by Arthur Conan Doyle so Sherlock and John exist in the Doctor’s universe. Clara and Harry didn’t get divorced, Clara is actually dead. This also takes place Post-Angels-Take-Manhattan but assumes that “Asylum of the Daleks” never happened so that it can be rewritten in this story.
> 
> I blame ineffableboyfriends (from tumblr) for this. It's inspired by a prompt [ here ](http://ineffableboyfriends.tumblr.com/post/35100430484/the-fury-of-a-time-lord-youre-right)
> 
> Also inspired by [ this fanart ](http://ineffableboyfriends.tumblr.com/post/35180394229/ineffableboyfriends-yes-you-are-sherlock)
> 
> Warning: So much ooc characters, please do not proceed if you don't want to see them butchered

**Part 1: Death is a Lie**

_Everyone leaves, in the end._

He remembers his mother walking away from them, his father dying of heartbreak, his sister drowning in alcohol, every woman he’s ever touched leaving and a blue box disappearing from the desert forever.

John stares at the tombstone and the large capitalized letters stare back. They mock him with _his_ name; remind him of his regrets and wrongs, all the horrible things he said before the fall (and the things he should have said.) The letters taunt him; remind him that John’s words are nothing. There was nothing he could have said or done to have stopped the fall... except three words (he’ll never say them now.)

He’s faced so many horrors and unspeakable things, things other people in this time wouldn’t even believe. He’s seen Cybermen, stone angels that steal your life’s potential from you, Autons, Sycorax and Daleks. As a soldier and a doctor, he’s seen humanity at some of its worst moments, killing and torturing others...

But it’s these words ( _his_ name) that makes John’s returned limp so weak. The sight of them cuts something vital in John’s psyche, makes him want to buckle to his knees, writhe on the ground and never get up.

_I’m sorry, Sherlock. I’m so, so sorry._

But he doesn’t. He can’t imagine his embarrassment of what Sherlock would say if he saw. John can almost imagine Sherlock’s scoff and comment of John being overdramatic. Sherlock would look away, to escape the sentiment with a scowl, but if John looked, he would see the soft glint in his eyes.

He misses that, the soft looks Sherlock would spare only to him. It’s only now that Sherlock is gone, that John looks back and remembers them. He’s poured over so many of their old photographs, seen the ones taken without their permission, the ones where Sherlock stares at John so intensely but John never notices.

Now he does. And now he wonders _why,_ why Sherlock looks at him like he’s—

It doesn’t matter anymore. Sherlock can’t answer him anyways. But he’s tried. He looked at his superphone, the one the Doctor modified so many years ago so that it could phone anywhere in any time. He tried phoning but all he gets is a dial tone blaring in his head. No voice mail. Nothing to help him pretend that Sherlock is still with him.

“Please don’t be dead,” he’s begged countless times. “Sherlock, I believe in you. I always do and I always will, just please... one more miracle, just for me? Don’t... Don’t be dead.”

This time though, John doesn’t ask.

He kneels down in the dirt and puts his forehead against the stone, wrapping his arms around it. The slab of marble is cold; the sharp edges sting his arms. But it has _his_ name. This is where _he_ rests. At least for today, John will pretend he still has him.

-

It’s been three years. He moves through life in robotic motions. Gets up for work, eats the bare minimum for his meals, works at the hospital and speaks in clipped tones to his patients and his co-workers. Sometimes Lestrade tries to get him to the bar. Sometimes he goes. But most of the time he doesn’t.

Lestrade always has a look of guilt and regret when John declines. There are bags under the inspector’s eyes. He looks a decade older with haggard lines on his face. John knows he should try to connect more with him. Lestrade didn’t want to arrest Sherlock, part of him still believed (believes) in the detective. But John just doesn’t feel like talking to anyone lately, not even Mrs. Hudson.

She’s begged him to return to 221B many times. “I still haven’t rented it out, you know. It just doesn’t feel right without my boys...” She trails off, becoming teary once more. He’s told her that it’s still too much just to return to that place. But he’ll think about it. That’s his answer every week that he comes for tea. He’ll think about it.

John likes to go for walks, exercise his aching leg. The hateful cane is his companion now, a guide through the city which has become alien to him. Where he once ran with adrenaline and awe and _Sherlock,_ with wonder at the shadows of London, now he can only feel intense fatigue and emptiness. He drags his body to their old crime scenes and the morgue. He sometimes lingers outside Angelo’s, stares through the window at their (empty) table.

He’s tried being happy. But the only thing that gives him joy these days is the cases he receives from Lestrade and Torchwood asking for consulting advice.

The Scotland Yard cases are actually the easiest to work on, when he draws on his memories of Sherlock. It makes him feel like the detective is there with him, pushing clues into John’s head with careless fingers. In the hours spent, hunched over papers and photos of suspects and corpses, John thinks he can hear him, whispering deductions and conclusions through the night.

But Torchwood reminds John too much of stars and adventure, bow ties and sad smiles. Torchwood reminds John of Harry throwing glass bottles at him while he stands protectively in front of the Doctor, of Clara’s glassy eyes and then Harry leaving. It reminds him of fire in his body as the bullets hit him and then, later, of stiff conversations with Sherlock.

( _Sharp eyes corner him in the kitchen one morning, “You call out for someone in your sleep... a Doctor. But who?”_

 _“No one, Sherlock... just, no one.”_ )

But he’s good at it, has a knack for identifying the different alien races and negotiating with them. He received correspondence from a Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones so that he doesn’t have to deal with Mycroft or (not) Anthea. They would have sought him out sooner if it hadn’t been for Mycroft hiding his location from them. He tries to avoid contact with Mycroft as much as possible, but the stupid bastard seems to make it his mission to keep an eye out on him.

( _“My brother didn’t like to share your, already, limited time, Doctor Watson,” the infuriating man had smiled when John phoned in with demands for an explanation. “Since he has passed away and you’ve been... restless, I thought I would give Torchwood your information.”_ )

It helps pass the time, keeps him preoccupied, even if he’s constantly haunted by the memories of the two most brilliant men he has ever known.

-

The thing is that John knows that he’s too ordinary for anything special to happen to him ever again. He was lucky, _twice_ lucky even to meet such amazing individuals and be whisked off to unimaginable danger.

He’s lost them both, the Doctor and then Sherlock (and Sherlock can’t come back, it _hurts_ so much to think of him.) He doesn’t expect them to return. He told the Doctor never to return to his life again and Sherlock is dead.

Whatever adventures John has now, they are over. The John Watson that saved the universe a hundred times over and who saved Sherlock Holmes died in the fall. He’s just a broken man now, drifting in existence.

Then the phone calls begin.

-

The first phone call happens at three in the morning. John’s wide awake, staring at the ceiling and listening to a CD recording of a fugue by Bach. Sherlock used to transpose the music to violin, letting it screech just to irritate John.

He can’t sleep without hearing it now, can’t help criticizing the soundtrack for sounding too _smooth_ , too _posh_ and too _boring_ to put him to sleep. The orchestra is too practised, too restrained. There is no emotion or subtle humour. There is nothing in the music that makes John want to yell and laugh at once.

When the phone begins ringing in short and constant beeps, John doesn’t notice at first because he’s focusing too much on the crescendo of the violin. But eventually, when the fortissimos die down, John jumps up at the irregular noise, back straight and ram-rod as a pin. His hand gropes in the dark at his bedside table.

The light of the screen glares at him and he winces when he sees the number is unknown. It’s probably Harkness calling on an untraceable line, with another case that shouldn’t be disclosed. John yawns and puts the phone against his ear.

He hears screaming.

Instantly, John is on alert, years of training in the army engrained in his head. He can see civilians being shot by the enemy, fellow soldiers dying in a surprise attack, the enemy with blood flowing from him because John pulled the trigger, John had no choice, he had to, needed to protect the civilians—

“Hello?” John asks, “Who is this? What’s happening?”

He’s already up, looking for a pad of paper and a pen to write down any useful information. A low voice. Baritone. Maybe a male, older. Adult. ( _“Yes, very good, John,” he thinks he hears Sherlock say._ ) The caller is screaming. Yes, he knows that part. These aren’t just terrified screams. These are the screams of a man under extreme torture (limbs being cut apart) with no care for pride. The caller probably isn’t coherent but maybe John can get him to reveal something, anything, so that John can help him.

But the screams continue and they pull at John with intense familiarity. He doesn’t want to hear this. Never wants to hear this, not from this voice, no, no, he’s just reacting, panicking, assigning random identities to a voice he wants to hear again (but not like this—)

The line is garbled, like someone’s taken the connection and decided to shake it in a hurricane, and then smothered it with their foot. The screams are louder, more pronounced and lost. “ _...Daleks...!_ ” He thinks he hears. “ _...Daleks...!_ ”

John feels cold when in the next moment... the line is dead.

-

“Explain,” John demands when he bursts through the doors of the Diogenes Club, into Mycroft’s booked room. The security guards are all sporting black eyes or are unconscious on the ground because of John’s impatience.

Mycroft is sitting on a well-crafted and polished oak chair, looking mildly surprised at his afternoon tea being interrupted. John notices that Mycroft’s skin is even paler than it was before, with hollowed out cheeks and an unhealthy pallor to his hair. Sherlock’s death has affected him as well, John is bitterly pleased to see, but Mycroft hasn’t lost the calculating edge to his eyes.

“I’m afraid that I don’t know what you mean, John,” Mycroft folds his hands in his lap. “Perhaps you’d like to explain?”

John storms up to him and shoves his phone towards him, “I mean _this!_ One month ago, I got a phone call”—from a dead man, he wants to add, but he isn’t sure because his mind could be playing tricks on him—“from a man under torture, screaming about _Daleks_. And when I contacted Captain Harkness, asking for the call to be traced, he said that it didn’t exist.”

“Now, Doctor Watson,” Mycroft begins to stand.

“So I thought it must be a prank. Some messed up joke. Plenty of people know about Daleks if they were in London during the Battle of Canary Wharf. Screams like that aren’t faked but it could have been a recording,” John rants, pacing back and forth while Mycroft watches him with wide eyes. “Then things started getting _fishy._ I started getting the same call two, three, nine times a day! Always with the screaming. Always with the word _Daleks_ and suddenly, they added something new.”

He stops, turns to Mycroft and stares with a broken expression.

“...The man screamed _‘John’_ like he knew me... and I’d know that voice anywhere,” John closes his fists and his eyes. “Tell me, Mycroft, tell me where he is.”

The room seems to breathe as harshly as John does, or perhaps it’s an echo closing in on them both. Mycroft’s gaze shifts from a surprised on to the schooled and closed-off eyes that John recognizes. He has his hands behind his back as he frowns and replies in a short tone, “I have no idea who you are talking about, Doctor Watson.”

A hysterical laugh escapes from John. The bewildered light returns to Mycroft’s eyes as John shakes his head. “Oh you can’t fool me, Mycroft,” he mutters, “I know who’s been calling me. I know that he’s in danger. Do you know what the Daleks will do to them once they get whatever they need? They’ll kill him. Right there. Now tell me, where is Sherlock? Surely you’ve been tracking me. Where’s the last place he’s been?”

This time, Mycroft does react. His face twists in a livid emotion, “Are you insane? My brother is dead. You saw the body just as I did. You know that he is gone. These Daleks or whatever aliens you speak of are likely playing tricks on your mind. Trying to lure the Doctor out by contacting one of his former companions—”

“Don’t bring that man into this! I’m talking about Sherlock’s life. He’s in danger—”

“ _Sherlock is dead!_ ” Mycroft shouts.

John doesn’t move, gazing up at the usually restrained man with numb shock.

Mycroft gives a great sigh, reaching out to clutch at his umbrella with a firm grip. When his harsh breaths finally simmer down he returns to the guise of the man who controls all of Britain. Only the pale fists clenching at the umbrella say otherwise.

“John,” he says in a clipped tone. “I understand that my brother’s death has been fairly... traumatic for you to watch. Such an experience leaves its scars—”

“But—”

“However,” Mycroft raises his voice, “you must consider the facts. First, it is possible for other alien civilizations to fabricate recordings and voices. Perhaps your mind leapt to the conclusion that it was my deceased brother contacting you because the fabrication sounded so similar. I received a report from Captain Harkness that you described the calls are garbled and hard to hear. Torchwood also couldn’t confirm the identity of the voice so it’s uncertain.”

John isn’t surprised that Mycroft already knew about the report he filed to Harkness, but he nods for Mycroft to continue.

“Second, the Daleks are an extinct race. The Doctor and his companions made sure of it. There have not been any more sightings of them on earth. They are gone. Third, if they are alive, then I promise you that Torchwood, UNIT and my agents have been searching, ever since you contacted Captain Harkness, for clues of their whereabouts. We are treating this as a possible threat and acting according to procedure.”

That sounds... reasonable. It’s what John would do in Mycroft’s position. He urges Mycroft to hurry up with his point though. Every second they waste, Sherlock is losing precious time.

“Fourth,” Mycroft goes on, “you can also consider that this is a trap. You are one of the few companions that have a means of contacting the Doctor. If they (whoever they may be) target you and force your hand, then the Doctor walks into their trap. Finally... this may all be... a result of stress. A prank call as you suggested before, a call that you are taking very seriously—”

“It’s not,” John starts, glaring at Mycroft. “I know it’s not—”

“Have you heard anything that I’ve said?” Mycroft snaps in turn. “My brother is gone, buried for three years. If I have not found him yet in all this time then he must truly be dead. The dead cannot return to speak to the living. It’s impossible, you are being tricked.”

“No,” John shakes his head, though the explanations begin to slowly trickle into his mind. They make sense. Of course, they do. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone’s come after him because of the Doctor. Before he met Sherlock, he encountered so many different aliens hiding out in Afghanistan on both fronts. When he had Sherlock, Mycroft kept any entities seeking John away with who knows what.

It always comes back to the Doctor in the end.

(But not for John, not after Sherlock.)

With some hesitation, Mycroft takes a step forward and puts a cautious hand on John’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, John. We will continue investigating the source of your calls. It won’t do for us to overlook fugitive Daleks on Earth. But he’s really dead. And I... truly am sorry.”

It’s not just the phone calls or John’s apparent delusions that Mycroft is apologizing for and for the first time, John thinks that he believes him.

-

It’s ridiculous, he knows this. He’s just grabbing at whatever clues he can, convenient or not. He knows that if Sherlock was alive, then he would believe it just as he believes that Sherlock was _real_ and nothing will convince him otherwise.

He’d know that voice anywhere, even if it was muffled by pain and torture and screams. It has to be Sherlock, it just has to be. No one would say his name like that, no one.

Is it too hard to believe that Sherlock might have survived, found a way to hide himself or tricked them all (and if he did, what does that mean for John?) But if he did survive then he’s in danger, he needs John—

(“You saw the body just as I did. You know that he is gone.”)

Is he going mad?

_Please... just one more miracle._

The next time his phone rings, John shuts it off. He ignores it for the rest of the week. It rings constantly, over and over, an insistent reminder, but can’t bring himself to destroy it.

-

The calls don’t stop.

-

“Fuck it,” he yells as soon as he picks up his phone, “leave me alone and stop sending these calls or I’ll call Scotland Yard, you tosser!” His fingers twitch towards the off switch. He’s sick and tired of these pranks, they’re not funny. Last night he dreamed about it, the screams, the way the caller screams about Daleks and screams for John as if he can save him—

“John,” says the voice in his ear. This time, it’s not a scream.

He nearly drops his mobile when he hears the familiar baritone, one he never thought he’d hear again. It’s only the shock from the previous phone call that blocks his thoughts, stills him.

“John,” the voice says again.

“No, it’s a trick,” He starts to whisper to himself. “Turn the mobile off, tell someone, try to get them to trace the call again...”

“John, John, can you hear me? Are you there?” The voice adds in that perfect baritone, the one he knows so well. It’s so clear now, so distinct and very him.

“No,” he answers into the mobile. “No, it can’t be. Sherlock is dead. He’s been dead for three years; you must be impersonating him—”

“You asked me once,” the voice says quickly, “if I dated and I replied that I considered myself married to my work. You shot a man to save me, merely a day after we first met. You have nightmares about your time in Afghanistan, about your sister and that _Doctor_ ,” the distain is there, so perfectly there, “when you have a stressful day. You used to be a companion to him though I’m very glad you aren’t anymore. I told you once that I have no friends... I’ve only got one.”

His breaths grow harsh; it’s a struggle to push air out from his lungs in this impossible moment. He’s never told anyone else about the last few details. Only Harry and those connected to Torchwood know he used to be the Doctor’s companion. And the last detail... no one else has ever known that. Only two people. Only two.

“...Oh my god,” he falls back against the wall, stares at the light hanging from the ceiling. “...Sherlock?”

He can almost see that smug grin, the one just for him. “Yes, John. I’m alive.”

John gives a choked laugh before more spills from his throat. He’s clutching his phone so tightly; he’s surprised that the little thing hasn’t broken. This is a dream. It has to be a dream, a wonderful one. But if it is a dream, he’s going to enjoy this feeling. Sherlock Holmes is alive. He wants to scream it to the rooftops but instead he just keeps laughing hysterically.

“...I can’t believe it.”

He’s not just saying that. Part of him is too afraid to believe it but the rest is rushing up with inexplicable joy.

“...How?”

Sherlock’s tone changes abruptly, urgent and desperate. “That’s not important right now. You need to get out of London. Call Mycroft or that Doctor of yours. They’re coming to kill you and I can’t stop them.”

John frowns, still caught between euphoria and sleep deprivation. “Who are? What are you talking about, Sherlock?” And how do you know this? But he doesn’t say that part. Sherlock always has a way of knowing. The detective always has his ways.

“The Daleks, John!” Sherlock shouts in his ear. “They’re in London, closing in on your apartment right this moment!”

-

Once, a long time ago, John destroyed an entire fleet of Daleks with the press of a button and the desperate thought of, ‘ _I can’t let the Doctor suffer through this again_.’ It was easy. Just one button, and yet it was the hardest thing he ever had to do.

(Except for watching Sherlock on the roof, that was the hardest thing he ever had to do.)

He understands a little more that day, why the Doctor always chooses to run away.

It’s easier.

Easier to pretend.

-

Blood is thumping in his ears and his chest, hammering until John feels like his ears will fall off. “Oh my god, they’re alive.” He remembers the Doctor saying once, asking, ‘Why? Why do they always survive?’ and John agrees. Of all the species that the universe chooses to preserve throughout time and space, it seems to pick those murderous pepper pots every time. Something else occurs to him. “What about you? Are you alright? Where are you?”

That was definitely Sherlock screaming in the weeks before. John opens his mouth to ask, to know if his friend is alright but—

“I’m fine. For now. I escaped them. I have food and shelter at least and I’ve finally been able to contact you. They can’t get me yet. I’ve blocked the doors. But you, they know what you mean to me. They’re coming.”

“Right then.”

He puts the mobile down. John rushes towards the counter, pockets his gun and throws on his coat. Then he picks up the mobile again, puts it between his ear and shoulder so that he can let Sherlock know that he’s heading out. He pulls on his boots, takes his cane and rushes down the steps, adrenaline pumping through his veins like an old friend.

There’s a window through his landlord’s kitchen. John’s glad that its night and that he doesn’t have to give rushed explanations to anyone. He’s even more grateful that he’s not living in 221B anymore. He can’t imagine the horror of Mrs. Hudson being shot by Daleks.

Quickly, John pries it open after pocketing his mobile. Then he climbs out and heads down one of the alley ways, wondering where he should run next. His limp is almost nonexistent now as he dropped the cane when he left the kitchen. He almost forgets that it exists as he looks back and forth, wondering where to run to next.

He presses the phone against his ear again, eager to hear Sherlock’s voice. It’s as if they’ve been returned to before; with Sherlock is standing next to him, leading the way as he always did.

“Good, you found another way out. They’re breaking down your door now,” Sherlock tells him. “Run straight ahead, don’t look back.”

“How do you know all this?” John asks, looking around half-expecting Sherlock to be there, half battered and bleeding but gloriously _alive_.

“I’ve hacked into their network and the CCTV. I can see them but they can’t see me,” Sherlock replies, a smug tone present (one that John has missed more than he can say.”

“Hacked into their network? Wait, that’s not possible,” The Doctor had always said it wasn’t possible. But it’s Sherlock and Sherlock has always redefined impossible for John. If there is ever anyone alive or dead who can outsmart the Daleks, John will always bet on Sherlock.

“Never mind that,” Sherlock snaps. “ _Run!_ ”

John realizes that he’s wasted precious time (stupid, so stupid) when he hears the crashes within his flat. There are flickering lights and the smash of glass. He thinks he hears the words ‘ _exterminate’_ floating through the window but doesn’t take a chance to find out. He heads up the alley way towards the road because Sherlock warns him that the other way leads him to a dead end.

There are two people standing in front of the door to the flat—an old woman that reminds him of Mrs. Hudson, except she is shorter and has long hair in a braid and a middle-aged man with a bald head. They stare into the street with blank expressions that put John on edge. No human can look that void of emotion, not even Mycroft Holmes.

“Guards,” Sherlock mutters through the earpiece.

“ _Dalek_ guards?” John gapes. But that’s not possible. He doesn’t remember Daleks being able to change their appearances to human ones. This is all new.

Sherlock, as if reading his mind, says, “They’re human puppets. They were once human but now have Dalek technology built within them. It makes it easier for the Daleks to trick others, lure them in when they need information... they— _argh!_ ”

There is a crash on the other end of the line. Then screaming, the same screaming from before. “Sherlock?” John shouts into the phone, “Sherlock, what’s happening? Are you alright? _Sherlock!_ ”

There’s nothing. Only a dial tone and when John looks up, the two guards are running towards him, having heard his shout. They have telescope –like lenses coming from their foreheads and blasters coming from their chests and mouths as they fire towards John.

He ducks, runs back into the alley, clutching his phone tightly as the dial tone laughs at him. He considers using his gun but knows that 21st century weapons are useless against the Daleks. Even if he did shoot, he’d need several consecutive rounds towards the eye piece before he managed to damage even one. These human puppets are probably using updated version of the Dalek armour and weapons.

“ _Retrieve... the... human...!_ ” He hears from behind him as more blue blasts narrowly miss his elbows and head. “ _Retrieve... John... Watson...!_ ”

“No!” John shouts when he comes to the dead end. He turns around, back pressed against the cold brick wall, hand twitching for his gun. The human puppets are close, with a few more steps they will be able to aim and fire at him. He sees their blank gazes and the gleam of their eye pieces.

 _Oh God, I can’t die here,_ he thinks of the desert. He thinks of being shot. He thinks of Clara’s body falling forward as a Dalek shoots her, of Harry screaming at the Doctor and blaming the Time Lord for interfering with their lives. He thinks of Sherlock falling and then Sherlock screaming.

 _God_ , he needs to live. Just for Sherlock, he needs to live.

John raises his arm, aiming for the eyepiece.

Then he hears a whirling sound that he never thought he’d hear again.

“Geronimo, my dear Watson!” a cheerful voice rings out, one he thought that he had left for the desert long ago.

He finds himself within the comforting walls of bright white and colour, of blinking lights and the singing nudges of the TARDIS in his head. He hears the whirls and beeps of different mechanisms, sees the swing in the corner. When John blinks, he sees the Doctor, in his tweed and signature bow-tie, smiling fondly at him.

“Oh, John Watson, it really has been a long time.”

 


	2. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unedited

**Part 2: Life is a Lie**

A long time ago, there was a medical student named John who had an older sister named Harry. She was training to become travel agent but what she really wanted to do with her life was travel the world. She wanted to see everything and gain all there could be gained from life.

But more than anything, she wanted a waitress named Clara to love her just as Harry loved her.

There was an incident involving an alien invasion through Swiss cheese which brought the Doctor to the Watson siblings and Clara. From then on, they traveled the stars and planets, Harry and Clara watching it all with awe while John quietly took in the wonder. They were happy, the Doctor, his blue box and his three mad humans.

Until they weren’t.

Until the Daleks.

-

He is speechless at first. After Afghanistan, after being shot, he never thought he’d see the Doctor again and he was content with that. He didn’t need to go traipsing around the universe anymore, not when a madman had shown him the brilliance that London had to offer in her own time.

“What are you doing here?” John breathes.

The Doctor pouts, “Well, that’s a fair exchange for saving your life. No thank you? Obligatory kisses? Oh, I wonder how you are doing, Doctor? Oh fine, thank you, John. Rescue a life, get nothing in return... woe is me...”

“The last time I saw you, I told you never to come back and you said you didn’t want to,” John points out, surprised that there is no bitterness in his tone. After having a dead man call him and many adventures in the stars not much is going to surprise him now. He shakes his head, recalling the danger, “Wait. The human puppets. They’re still outside—”

“Oh, yes, of course,” the Doctor’s face darkens into a rage that John understands. “The TARDIS formed around you and your attackers. She put those things into another room, sealed up tight. We’ll drop them off on another planet where they can’t do any harm or destroy them if they don’t cooperate.”

Everything seems to pause in that moment; even the TARDIS stops her calculations and beeps as if the smallest noise will set the Doctor’s temper off. Once, when John was young and naive, he might have flinched or grown a sweat from merely witnessing the depth of that anger. But he’s been a doctor and a soldier. He’s been a child of time. He holds his ground.

The Doctor’s demeanour changes then as he bounces up, clapping his hands together, “So, dear Watson, what’s brought _you_ to the attention of the Daleks this time?” He either doesn’t notice or he’s ignoring John’s flinch, “I got a signal from your phone—”

“Signal?” John frowns. “That must have been Sherlock. He must have hacked into my phone or something...”

“Well that’s not possible,” the Doctor waves that explanation away, “A 21st century human can’t hack into that phone. I modified it—”

“Well Sherlock is a genius,” John snaps, the words of ‘fake genius’ echoing in his head at the implication, “if anyone can do it, he can. I told him about you so he must have guessed that I’d help getting away from the puppets... oh god, Sherlock...!” John grabs the Doctor’s sleeve, “We need to find him. He’s in danger. The Daleks captured him, he’s somewhere safe now but—”

“Daleks?” the Doctor turns towards him, that angry glare returning.

“ _Yes, Daleks_ ,” John throws his hands up in frustration, “Haven’t you been watching? Human puppets? Yes? Connecting the dots yet? They’ve kidnapped my dead best friend whose been calling me on my mobile and now they’re after me and I don’t know why but if we don’t find Sherlock soon they’ll probably kill him and I can’t—”

“Whoa, whoa,” the Doctor grabs him by the shoulders, “slow down and sit.”

“No, I don’t want to sit, I want to get out of your damn TARDIS,” the ship buzzes angrily at this, he makes a mental apology, “and find my friend, now open the bloody door!”

The Doctor points a finger at him, “You forget, dear Watson, you are rushing into a very dangerous situation with only a pistol,” his face grimaces with disgust, “to defend yourself with. There are probably dozens of other human puppets out there, searching for you and, if I’m right which I always am, more than one Dalek behind this endeavor. Also, if I remember correctly, you always have a habit of marching off into suicidal situations which means you have no idea where your friend is or how safe he is. So, to sum it up, you are one lone human with a feasible and flawed weapon, searching the entire world for a human captured by a few Daleks that your human governments have overlooked. Not very good odds.”

John pushes the Doctor away from him, bristling at his words, “I may be human but I can still _think_. Being human doesn’t make you weak. I have people I can call, Mycroft, Torchwood... they’ll help...”

“But could they track your friend’s calls on your mobile?”

He freezes and the Doctor takes that as a ‘no’ if his smug grin is of any indication. John had forgotten how arrogant the Doctor could be.

“See?” The Doctor smoothes out the creases in his bowtie. “You need my help after all.”

John frowns, a protest on his lips. But then he hears Sherlock screaming in his head, screaming about John’s name. Then he remembers how their last phone call was cut off with more screams. This isn’t the time to be petty and bitter over the past.

Part of John doesn’t want to because telling the Doctor will take him back to a time when Harry and Clara were still happy. Telling the Doctor will make him relive those memories, memories that had only numbed away when he was fighting a war and when he ran with Sherlock. But this is for Sherlock and he won’t lose him again.

“Alright,” he nods, feeling so tired now. “Alright...”

-

“Travelling with the Doctor… comes with a price,” Harry tells him once, wasted on her drink and despair. “It’s wonderful and amazing and he makes you want to be like him. But don’t John,” she clings to his arm, “don’t go back to travelling with him.”

He flinches and tries to take her hand away from his face, “Harry… I don’t think Clara would have wanted this. She would have wanted us to stay with the Doctor, keep him from—”

“Well fuck that! She’s gone now, John and I want my brother safe!” She roars, smashing the bottle against the table. Red dribbles out mixed with the shards, a tantalizing colour to touch. “He can’t take you away from me! You’re the only one I have left!”

“And what about him?” John argues, “Who does he have?”

Harry starts to laugh, tossing her head back. Each laugh is a cold punch against his chest. “Oh John, he has no one. And you know why? Because he kills them. And if you stay… you’ll die too, you’ll change or you’ll lose someone.”

She goes quiet, staring off into space, “…I don’t want you to lose anyone.”

“Oh Harry,” he puts his arms around her, “I’m not going to die, I’m not going to lose anyone. I promise.”   

-

It’s a lie, of course.

When you travel with the Doctor, all your promises become lies.

The old John Watson died in a desert, watching the sand for a shade of TARDIS blue. The old John Watson changed when he took up a gun and realized that it isn’t the weapon that is evil, but the person holding it. The old John Watson lost himself in nightmares and blood.

John wonders, this time, what he will lose.

-

John tells him quickly about meeting the only consulting detective in the world, about a psychopath Moriarty, a fall, phone calls from a dead man and then a warning about Daleks. It’s strange... how easily the words slip out when he gets started. He feels like a reporter, just reporting the news, as if all of this has happened to another John Watson in another life (if only that were true.)

But, John concludes... it’s the Doctor. The Time Lord has a way of making you want to try your best, to impress him, until you lose yourself or you become something just like him.

(He remembers the way the Doctor looked at him, after John was shot, the way his face crumpled as Harry screamed at him, “ _You made John into you!_ ”)

When he is finished, the Doctor’s lips are pressed in a tight line and his hands are shaking slightly.

They both know the reason and John swallows. He looks away and quietly asks, “So these Daleks, how are they here?”

“The Cult of Skaro,” the Doctor scowls before he throws his shoe across the console room in a fit of frustration. “ _Damn it,_ I knew I should have gone after them!”

“ _What?_ ” Those are the Daleks that killed Clara, that made Harry go insane with grief and made John into a killer. He remembers them well but he thought that he had destroyed them with that bomb. “But how...?”

“Some of them lived, escaped on a ship. I met them again during WWII, during the blitz,” the Doctor mutters. “They made more of themselves, upgraded versions ...and I let them get away.”

John feels his throat constrict. His first instinct is to yell that, yes, the Doctor should have gone after that ship of Daleks, should have killed them before they had a chance to hurt anyone else. But even after all these years, John knows him. He knows that the situation is never as simple as it seems, never black and white. The Doctor isn’t always the angel or knight in shining armour and too often, their enemies are not always the witches hiding in the dark.

His anger at seeing the Doctor has bubbled away, leaving only faint traces. It seems so meaningless now with whose life is at stake. He looks at the Doctor, really looks at him and takes in the details that he missed earlier. He sees that the ancient gaze has become more haggard than before, more sorrowful. There is deep loss and grief there. The Doctor, so young in appearance, looks older than ever.

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t try to blame or absolve the Doctor of any sins like the Doctor expects him to. He doesn’t ask ‘what happened?’ or ‘why are you alone now?’ because he thinks he knows. (“ _Everyone leaves me in the end, dear Watson. And now... you are too.”)_ Instead John says, “They have Sherlock. I need to get him back. I know that you can’t possibly want to have anything to do with me, after all these years but... please. Can you help me?”

The Doctor frowns and leans in, until their foreheads are an inch apart. “John Watson,” he says slowly, “I will always help you, former companion or not, you are my friend. A very dear one no matter what I’ve said that might suggest otherwise. Besides,” his face brightens as he jumps up, pulling out his sonic screwdriver with a twirl of his fingers, “who else is going to defeat those Daleks but me? Now where’s that phone of yours?”

John feels the edges of his lips twitch up as he swallows down all of his other emotions. He feels there might be hope after all.

-

The Doctor takes apart John’s mobile with the enthusiasm of a child opening his first Christmas present. He takes out everything, even the modifications that he added in the first place while John stares with bewilderment. The Time Lord is muttering what sounds like gibberish to John, about sound waves and timelines, particles and space conundrums.

Before John knows any better, the Doctor has slapped all the pieces back together so that the mobile appears pristine, never touched. He tosses it towards John who catches it, shouting, “Yes, I’ve found the signal! Oh, your human genius is clever, I’ll admit that. He manipulated the time-space properties that are radiating from your phone so that he could contact you. Makes it difficult for other species to trace with primitive means, but not a Time Lord... let’s see... where are you...?”

The Doctor moves from screen to screen, unscrewing and screwing dials, pressing buttons and pulling levers. He almost knocks John over three times in a rush to look at screens from different sides of the console, all of them flashing different garbles of Gallfreyan language. John notices images and up-close views of Earth being shown by the TARDIS.

He leans in, looking at the words, at the complex calculations flitting over the map, narrowing down image after image until he sees a view the countryside a thousand miles from London. It’s a gaunt and grey castle-like building that towers over empty, dreary fields and a cold shore. There are walls surrounding it, made of thick cement and obscuring the view of the castle. But John can see the bits of wire stretching across the wall, the bars at the top windows...

“It’s a prison,” John whispers.

“Yes, one that’s not recognized or well-known. Probably hidden behind a perception filter, an abandoned castle that the Daleks found and then decided to use as their base of operations. It’s perfect for them, keeps them isolated from society. Bit ironic really. Don’t like irony, myself, can’t stand it.”

“And Sherlock... they’ve got him in there?” John asks.

“Unless the signal is coming from a tree or the ocean, then yes. Exactly, Watson, he’s being imprisoned in a prison. Shall we break him out?”

-

“Where are your companions, that couple you mentioned?” John asks just as they leave the TARDIS.

He doesn’t know why he’s inquiring when he swore that he wouldn’t. Maybe it’s the lonely stare the Doctor has whenever he thinks that John isn’t looking (and he does look now, he notices as much as he can after the Fall.) Maybe it’s how buoyant the Doctor is acting, more so than usually and how he glances at John with too much hope on his face, too much expectation.

It makes John want to rip his hair out, to yell, ‘You left me and I left you, you can’t ask me to come back!’ And there’s Sherlock. He doesn’t think the TARDIS will tolerate having two arrogant geniuses on board for longer than five minutes.

The Doctor gives him a blank look, pausing in mid-step out the door.

“The Ponds, right?” John elaborates.

The Doctor’s gaze darkens again. “...Gone. Just... gone.”

“Oh,” He remembers Clara, pulling her corpse away from Harry so that he could carry her into the TARDIS (“ _We should bury her on earth, it’s what she would have wanted_...” he says as Harry finally helps him, cradling her wife’s hand in hers.) “I’m sorry.” He wonders if it was Daleks too that took them, if Daleks take everything that the Doctor loves away.

“It’s fine,” the Doctor replies in a jovial tone, “I’m always fine. Now let’s go find out what these Daleks are up to shall we?”

The Doctor pulls him along and John doesn’t protest.

-

There was a desert and there was a blue box. John remembers running towards it, just as it disappeared into the sand, the dunes smoothing themselves over so that it seemed there was no box there at all.

He waited for five and a half hours.

At some point, dying from dehydration, he ran into the British army. Eventually he enlisted. He obeyed orders. He mended people. He tried to forget about planets where dogs have no noses, about supernovas and cat nuns. Harry had left when Clara died. It only made sense that the Doctor would leave him, wanting to forget the death he caused.

Then John was shot… and he saw the Doctor again.

-

The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to get through the doors. There are weeds and wild grass growing past John’s knees all scattered in the yard. It appears abandoned with no guards in sight, no human puppets and no Daleks. There is only the tall and ominous looking castle, with cameras stationed within its stone barriers.

Sharing a glance, the Doctor and John tip toe through the forest of weeds. They don’t hear anything that sounds an alarm or the eerie words of ‘exterminate’ but John does notice that the lens of the cameras seem to turn and watch them. It’s too similar to Mycroft’s constant surveillance of him (by now he imagines that Mycroft is ordering his minions to cover up the appearance of the TARDIS in London) but unlike with Mycroft, John doesn’t feel any reluctant amusement at the gesture. Instead he feels shivers rush down his spine.

He wonders who is watching them. If it’s the Daleks, John wants to know why they haven’t attacked yet.

“They’re after something,” he says, if only to block out the frantic thumping in his heart, the echoes of Harry and Clara.

“After you, for some reason,” the Doctor agrees. “I suppose we’ll just have to walk into their trap and see what it is.”

John shakes his head. “You don’t have a plan, do you?”

The Doctor gives him a manic grin, “Oh you know me, Watson. I just make things up as I go along! Besides,” a thread of the Oncoming Storm laces itself into his tone, “we’ll make them pay for their crimes soon enough.”

The promise of destruction in the Doctor, something that John recognizes, makes his fingers twitch towards his gun. He can’t help but search the Doctor’s face for any trace of that crazed (and shattered) gleam that was present when Clara died, when the Doctor and John killed the Daleks.

( _…for the greater good…_ )

“We’re here to save Sherlock, remember?” He reminds him. “No blowing things up, not until we find him.”

The Doctor falters for half a moment, something like regret and disappointment stirring in his face before he puts his hand on John’s back, leading him towards the doors, “Yes… yes, of course… we need to find your friend…”

-

They don’t find Sherlock. Not yet. But in a way, Sherlock finds them first.

-

“Hello?” the Doctor sings invitingly, while his gaze promises nothing but destruction for any Daleks that dare answer.

His voice echoes down through the dark room, resonates with the odd drip of the pipes and cold cement. John sees that there is a thick layer of dust on all of the wooden benches, the glass box in which there should be prison security. He also notices a shift in the dust, long and broad strokes big enough to fit a Dalek… several of them.

John takes out his Browning, points it straight ahead, “Doctor, I think they’re waiting for us, somewhere.”

The Doctor looks at the gun with disgust before his face brightens at the traces of dust, “Wonderful, Watson! Yes, I believe that this was disturbed not long ago, let’s see,” he pulls out his sonic, “just half an hour ago. Yes, they must still be here, but where… where…?”

He spins on his heels and picks a random door, knocking on it at different locations, top corner to bottom before he shrugs and opens it. The Doctor bends down and looks at the dust there, using his sonic again, muttering, “Much too late… not recent enough, let’s follow the trail this way then…”

John is tense, looking back and forth, taking in all possible escape routes in the room. He glances from the muttering (and frustrated) Doctor to the camera he has just noticed in the corner of the room. It’s twitching and fixed straight upon him.

Slowly, John frowns, wondering if he should shoot it or if it’s already too late and the Daleks have spotted them. This isn’t typical behavior for them. John is used to those things capturing the Doctor and his companions, killing on sight if there is no reason to keep them alive. It’s not like the Daleks to wait (though those in the Cult of Skaro are the thinkers… the dangerous ones, unable to be predicted.)

This all screams of a trap (and yet the Doctor is walking straight into it, a maniacal gleam present.)

“Doctor—” John wants to warn him.

His phone rings.

Immediately, John picks it up while the Doctor jumps over to John, leaning close so he can hear. John swats the Doctor away and puts the call on speakerphone. “Hello?” He asks, hoping, desperately hoping…

“ _Get out of there, you idiots!_ ” He hears.

They look up towards the doors. Human puppets, all former inmates with bright orange outfits, march in with bright Dalek lenses protruding from their skulls.

“Shit!” John swears, shooting at them.

The bullets ricochet off in random bursts, while the human puppets remain unfazed, looking at the Doctor and John with emptiness. For the first time in years, John can’t think. He doesn’t know where to shoot or when. The persona of the soldier roars at him to aim for the eyes and yet his rational side argues that it will do no good.

Something crashes.

It’s the Doctor, wrestling one of the human puppets to the ground and directing its (once) human arm, now a blaster, towards the other puppets. The struggling puppet underneath the Doctor can’t think beyond its function. It shoots wildly, bright blue bursts destroying its other counterparts before it attempts to shoot at the Doctor with a gun coming from its mouth.

John pulls the Doctor off before the puppet can shoot. He searches for an opening, spots a hallway leading deeper into the prison. He can hear shouting from his phone, still clenched in his fist. The caller urges them to go straight ahead and that’s what John does.

He grabs the Doctor and shouts, “ _Run!_ ”

-

“Doctor, do you love anyone?” Harry asks him with wagging eyebrows.

The Time Lord grins, tossing his arms up and then spinning a giggling Clara in circles, “Of course I do! I love the TARDIS and I love all my companions. I love everyone!” He pauses, “Well, maybe not everyone. Definitely not the weeping angels. Or the Cybermen. Or Daleks. Alright, well I love almost-everyone.”

Clara and Harry burst into giggles while John exchanges a confused glance with the Doctor.

“She means, do you love anyone romantically? Have you ever?” Clara clarifies, “Because, well, we’ve always figured that you were… um…”

“Asexual,” Harry finishes, stepping next to her girlfriend and interlacing fingers with her.

The Doctor, to their delight, actually turns pink, “Now that’s not a question to be asking! Who wants to know that? I’m an old man, me. Not interested, nope.”

He sticks his tongue out at them and pulls out another bowl of custard and fish fingers from his pockets, licking his fingers with delight. The girls laugh at him in response, not noticing the sad slump of the Doctor’s shoulders or the bitterness in his old eyes. John notices though and he waits until the girls have retreated into their rooms before he says anything.

For a while, they sit in silence as the Doctor slowly finishes his custard.

“I did have someone,” the Doctor says quietly.

John almost falls over at the sudden start of conversation. He blinks owlishly at the Time Lord. “Sorry?”

“I knew I loved her from the moment I met her and I told her ‘ _run_ ’ but I didn’t realize it until much later, when she was gone,” the Doctor confesses. He turns to John somberly, “Everyone leaves in the end, Watson.”

John doesn’t know what to say to that. In the end, he says nothing. Only listens. He doesn’t know why the Doctor confided in him and he never learns.

John doesn’t think he’ll ever understand it.

(But then there’s a case with bread crumbs and a book of fairy tales, there’s a maniac obsessed with his flatmate, there’s dashing through London with handcuffs and accusations, there’s ‘ _Take my hand_ ’ and the feeling that this is how it’s always supposed to be, just Sherlock and John and London, always… and it isn’t until a rooftop on St. Bart’s, until _‘Goodbye John_ ’ that he finally understands…

And maybe he always did.)

-

“Shit,” John mutters again as they narrowly miss more gunfire. The Doctor stumbles behind him. They come to a staircase and begin rushing up after the Doctor bolts the exit shut with his sonic.

“What floor?” John asks.

“I dunno!” the Doctor shouts back. “Ask your friend on the phone!”

They almost don’t hear the instructions on the speakerphone, since their steps slam in echoes all the way up the staircase. John hears a muffled, ‘fourth floor’ before the Doctor unlocks that door for them and they burst through into another dark corridor.

There’s no one there, at least for now, and John breathes a little easier.

The Doctor swipes John’s phone from him and begins to argue with it. “Alright, tell me who you are and how you’ve gained access to a superphone that I installed, by the way. It should be impossible. And if you are Watson’s friend, tell me how you’ve managed to keep out of the Daleks’ way without being captured. And how are you seeing us?”

“How very tedious of you,” Sherlock sneers on the other end of the line. John grabs the phone back, relieved to hear that his friend is still alive. “The Doctor, I presume? You’re as annoying as I thought you’d sound. You know who I am, John’s told you and you already know that I have access to a computer and I’ve been using it for the past several weeks to hack into the Dalek security system and various networks. Simple.”

“And why haven’t you tried to escape?” the Doctor challenges him, trying to steal the phone back from John who stops him.

“Honestly, Doctor!” John scowls, unimpressed by the hostile way that the Doctor is addressing Sherlock. The Time Lord hadn’t acted like this on the TARDIS earlier…

“Rather difficult to do with a severe wound and several Daleks attempting to break into my hiding place,” Sherlock replies drily.

The Doctor’s eyes narrow, “Oh really…? And why are they after you? Why are they after Watson as well? What do you two have to offer…?”

“Doctor, I don’t think this is the time,” John growls. They’re wasting the moments they need to rescue Sherlock on these pointless questions. “You can interrogate each other later! These questions aren’t important—”

“Oh but they are, Watson, can’t you see it? Or maybe you do but you don’t want to, just like your friend here. How long has he been dead? Three years? And yet he only calls a month ago? Screaming? Now he’s suddenly intact and talking in coherent sentences? I don’t think so, there’s something happening, something the Daleks now need you for and I think,” the Doctor leans in closer, “that it’s a—”

“NO!” Sherlock shouts from the phone.

There’s movement from behind the Doctor. John cries out a warning, shooting at the shadowy target. The Doctor turns around, lips parted in surprise when a blue beam hits him, strikes him in a chest, makes him fall—

“ _Doctor, acquired!_ ” He hears.

John is screaming, tackling the thing, the human puppet and forcing its arm towards its face, forcing it to shoot itself. But it doesn’t. It turns the tables on him, flips over so that it is on top of him, beam pressed towards his face and John’s eyes widen, this is it. He’s going to die. He let Sherlock down. No. No, he can’t die, he can’t, please god, what about Sherlock—

The beam hits him and he’s prepared for excruciating pain, for meeting Clara again.

But there’s nothing.

When John awakes, he is in a different hallway, a different section of the prison.

He is completely alone. No Doctor. No Daleks. Only a phone and Sherlock’s voice.

 


	3. Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unedited

**Part 3: Love is**

“Oh but you’ve lost, Mr. Holmes, you’ve lost everything,” Sebastian Moran laughs just before Sherlock puts a bullet in his head. “Do you think I wouldn’t get revenge for what you did to _him?_ Oh, I’ve found _people_ , people who will strip you of everything you are until you are nothing but a machine!”

Sherlock takes the shot, tired of hearing dying monologues from all of Moriarty’s employees. Endless days have been spent, travelling from city to city, different countries, tracking down nameless men and women who wish to kill the one thing that matters most to him. He’s tired of it and he wants it to end. This is the last of Moriarty’s reach.

(But is it really Moriarty he should fear anymore? A dead man? Somewhere in hell, he’s sure that madman, his mirror image, is laughing.)

Moran slumps over bleeding out from the stomach and gasping for air. Blood dribbles from his lips, pools around his body and yet he’s smiling, a look of psychotic glee stained against his teeth that is just as chilling as his late employer’s. “Oh, they’re coming for you... they’ll dismantle you until there’s nothing left... see you in Hell.”

Sherlock leans down, stepping on Moran’s fingers. “Who are? Who have you ordered next to kill me?”

With his dying breath, Moran spits at him.

That’s when Sherlock turns around, seeing the things that John screamed about in his dreams, things that Sherlock hates for taking away his John’s peace of mind. “Daleks,” he gasps, shooting wildly at them when he knows that his weapon is useless. But perhaps he can create a distraction, escape a different route, break through a window (no, too high, risk of death is at eighty-five percent and he needs to see John again, he promised that day at the graveyard when he heard John ask for a miracle—)

They take him.

-

“Doctor? Doctor!” John shouts, banging against the metal sheeted walls and stone. He keeps the phone pressed against his ear, so hard that he thinks it will be stuck there forever, attached to his head. “Where are you?!”

This isn’t good. He doesn’t think that the human puppets killed the Doctor. What did that one say? _Doctor acquired?_ Not the usual ‘exterminate’ so they need the Doctor for something. Yes. But what? Is this a trap like Mycroft warned him it would be? Oh god, he’s endangered the Doctor then and he still hasn’t found Sherlock. Think, think, what should he do?

“John,” says Sherlock to his ear. Immediately John calms at the sound of that voice. “He’s merely been captured—”

“Captured?!” Yes, there is definitely more going on in this prison than meets the eye. What are the Daleks up to? What could they possibly want...?

“Yes, they haven’t harmed him. I don’t think they intend to...” Sherlock pauses. “I can create a diversion so that he can escape. I want you to come and find me first.”

John finds himself nodding, slipping back into that normalcy that is Sherlock and John. The plan seems reasonable. Sherlock has it all under control with his hacking. It is a bit strange that Sherlock hasn’t devised an elaborate escape route with the computer he’s somehow gained access to. Yes, Sherlock wouldn’t be able to defend himself if he faced a Dalek but it wouldn’t be too difficult to learn the routine of their patrols, to find a sewer route or different passages to escape.

Unless, John remembers the screaming, Sherlock’s been heavily injured. Maybe he’s lost his legs or worse (but what could be worse besides death?)

“Before,” John wants to find out, “when the Doctor was asking you—”

“Don’t,” Sherlock snaps. “Just... don’t. We don’t have much time. They’re still interrogating him. I’ve set off some of the sprinklers to create a distraction for the Doctor so you don’t need to worry about him. I need you to find me first.”

If anything, his words only heighten John’s fear and he moves faster.

“Alright,” he nods shakily, “Alright…”

“I’m guiding him towards you. Just keep walking, John. Come find me,” Sherlock instructs, his words a comforting anchor for John’s decisions to be made. He’s moving even before Sherlock speaks because he knows what Sherlock wants.

He looks down the dark hallway. The darkness looks back.

-

There is a conversation that John has with Sherlock once, a few days after he shot the cabbie for him.

John is typing up his latest blog entry, trying to decide whether he should type up their ‘first’ case or not. It seems rather invasive of Sherlock’s privacy (though Sherlock had scoffed and told him to do as he liked) and his therapist will probably make another strange comment in their next session. Ella doesn’t seem particularly fond of the detective.

“…You travelled with a Time Lord called the Doctor, correct?” Sherlock asks him while peering into his microscope.

John’s fingers slip and he ends up misspelling the word ‘pink.’ He lets out a shuddering breath and doesn’t look at Sherlock.

“I’m guessing that either Mycroft told you about it or you’ve done your research…” He says drily.

“Research, obviously. Quite simple to deduce the identity of the Doctor after all the alien invasions London and Cardiff seems to attract,” Sherlock confirms. He pauses, “May I ask why you left him?”

This time John gives him a sharp glance. “What makes you think that I left? Maybe he abandoned me.”

“Oh please,” Sherlock scoffs. “Your body language tells the whole story. Your tense shoulders, the clenched jaw, rigid fingers, defense gaze all indicates a bitter history. The Doctor could provide you with a far more exciting life than I could. He’d have been daft not to keep you. So ergo, you left him.”

“Well he _did_ leave me, even if he didn’t mean to,” John snaps before he closes his eyes and stares up at the ceiling. He’s never talked to anyone about this. Not even Harry. But for some reason, he wants Sherlock to know.

“Look,” John says, “sometimes the Doctor just… promises to come back but he doesn’t. He ends up late, or in my case, five years late. And by that time… I’d been shot. I was useless and I didn’t want his pity.” John will never forget the look in the Doctor’s eyes, the anger there at John’s wounds and the accusations ( _“You became a_ soldier? _You shot people? Killed them?_ ” _the Doctor spits out, as if John has betrayed him._ ) “So I told him to leave… and he told me he wasn’t going to come back for me. That’s it.”

He swallows, fighting back the memories. He hears Sherlock shifting in his seat, footsteps coming towards him. John figures that Sherlock will just move on to another experiment, having fulfilled his curiosity. But then he feels cool fingers touch his cheek and intense eyes studying his face.

“He was a fool for letting you go,” Sherlock says almost casually, “but I’m glad. It means you’re mine now.”

John feels tightness in his throat, “I don’t belong to anyone.”

Sherlock only smiles.

They don’t speak of it again but when John is at a crime scene with him, he knows. They both do.

-

“Keep going down the corridor,” Sherlock tells him as John passes more empty prison cells. The rows of black bars, all parallel and lining the walls, makes John nervous. But he marches forward, listening to the comforting sound of his best friend’s voice.

“Sherlock... why did you do it?” John asks the dark hallway, the phone in his hand. “Why did you jump?”

_Why did you leave me?_

His friend is absolutely silent, a hitch in his breath. For a moment, John believes that Sherlock will not tell him, that Sherlock doesn’t deem it necessary to answer or perhaps he doesn’t know how to. But then Sherlock says, “It was to protect you.”

John goes still, a sudden chill sweeping within him.

“Moriarty had snipers aimed at Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade... and you. If I didn’t jump, they would have killed you... and I wouldn’t even—I couldn’t—imagine living on like that.”

“...So you jumped...?” John’s voice cracks.

“Friends protect people,” Sherlock echoes his words back at him.

That’s when John’s defenses break, when he starts choking out in hysterics and liquid streaming down his face. He hears Sherlock calling out his name desperately, asking what is wrong, if he said something ‘not good’ again. It makes John laugh even more and he can’t even describe it, this lightness, this feeling of _thank goodness,_ of _thank you_ and of _you are amazing._

He wants to punch Sherlock in the face for leaving him in the dark for three years and he wants to cling to the man, make sure that his heart is still beating and his body is warm. John wants to tell him what he couldn’t before, wants Sherlock to know how goddamn grateful he is that Sherlock is alive.

Not yet though. Not until he finds him.

“You could have trusted me a little, you know,” John adds in a light tone. It doesn’t mask the muddled sound of drying tears.

“I couldn’t contact you,” Sherlock says in an affronted way, still wary of John’s reaction, “I couldn’t risk it. Just the thought of you being shot—I needed to do what was necessary to bring down Moriarty’s web. Only then could I return to you.”

“But then the Daleks found you,” John whispers.

The line is silent again for a long time.

“Yes, then the Daleks found me.”

-

There are many things that John regrets. Never telling Clara that she was the most wonderful sister-in-law, that she made Harry better, that she was John’s best friend and that he loved her as family. Ignoring Harry for all these years because he was afraid of how she’d changed with the drink.

Calling Sherlock a machine. Not seeing that Sherlock needed him to be there, even if he said otherwise. Not watching carefully enough. Not showing he cared enough. Never enough.

 He’ll never regret leaving the Doctor though, because that brought him to the most brilliant detective in the world and he wouldn’t have missed it, any of it, for all the stars in the universe.

-

There’s a blast down the hallway and John rushes towards it automatically (“ _Always rushing towards danger,” Sherlock smiles with him after they’ve tracked down the suspect._ )

“No, John, don’t go, they’ll find you!” he hears Sherlock vaguely from the speakerphone.

“But the Doctor—”

Another blast shakes the floors, making John stumble against the prison bars. He sees the golden flare of fire just at the end of the hall and dashes towards it. There are voices, shouting at each other (or in the Daleks’ case, merely dictating in the same eerie mechanical sounds.)

John sneaks along the walls, pushing the volume button down for his phone and checking the door before he turns to peek into the room.

It’s the mess hall, or it was the mess hall. Now it seems that the Daleks have redecorated and arranged the tables so that they run in tow parallel lines stretching down the dark room. At the front, there is a pile of tables stacked on top of each other, where the current leader of the Cult of Skaro is shouting at the Doctor to ‘ _obey, obey!_ ’ The Dalek leader is encased in glass, his tentacle-like form floating in liquid as his cold eye stares at his subjects.

There’s dozens of them, all sitting on the tables, row by row like opposing chess pieces.

The Doctor points his sonic at them, smiling calmly, “Oh no, I don’t think so. You want me to _save you_ from your science experiment gone wrong? Why not destroy it yourself?”

None of the Daleks answer, their metal forms silent but quivering slightly.

“Oh, I see,” the Doctor laughs. “Oh this is quite something! Are you frightened of what you’ve tried to create? You think he’s unstable, calling out for a human of all things, taking control of your puppets with his subconscious? Well just do what you do best! Just kill him!”

Their leader seems to bristle, “ _We Daleks do not wish to destroy another in our likeness. We wish to... preserve that beauty_.”

The Doctor recoils in disgust.

“And then what? You kill me and my companion afterwards? Oh I don’t think so. I’d much prefer to blow you all up at once!”

“ _Then if you will not obey, then we shall exterminate you and then use the human John Watson to control it_!”

“ _NO!_ ” Three voices roar at the same time.

Flashes of bright light go off, blue beams in several directions as the Daleks all fire with their long metal blasters at the Doctor. John runs in just as the Doctor leaps out of the way. He pulls the Doctor up, tugs him towards one of the other exits but there are so many blasts that he can’t make out where they could be.

“ _Exterminate! Exterminate!_ ” the Daleks all echo in overlapping voices, a regular musical round of incoming death from all sides.

“ _Capture the human! We will use it to control our experiment!_ ” their leader orders are more blue lines intersect and narrowly miss the Doctor’s limbs.

“I don’t think so!” another shouts over the intercom, a grating in John’s ears. He winces from the disturbing noise, feels it resonate deep within his bones, worse than nails being scratched on a chalkboard. The sound surrounds him, makes him feel dizzy.

But that’s nothing compared to what it does to the Daleks. John blinks and watches in horrid fascination as all the Daleks begin to screech in a similar way, spinning in circles around each other from pain. There appears to be sparks coming from the top domes of their metal bodies, like blood lit on fire.

“What’s happening...?” John gapes.

The Doctor isn’t answering. When John turns towards him, he sees that the Doctor is also howling, putting hands clamped against his ears to try to block the noise.

“Shit,” John grabs the Doctor so that he is supporting his shoulder. He searches for somewhere to go. He spots a large metal door beginning to rise into the ceiling, opening up. “This way!” he shouts over the abhorrent screeches.

He drags the Doctor towards it, trying to ignore the ringing in his head, the way the Daleks’ screeches remind him of Clara and a button pressed in vengeance, of watching a species burn up because of him. He runs from it, hoping that the Daleks won’t recover and resume shooting them.

The awful noises from the intercom, and the screeches, stop as soon as John steps through the metal door with the Doctor.

The door falls back down and John nearly drops the Doctor when he sees what is inside.

“No,” he trembles, staring at it, seeing no exit in the tiny white room to get away, “no, no, no, no, we can’t be trapped!”

-

“John?” Sherlock asks. He’s confused. This isn’t the reaction he expected from his blogger. After all the effort Sherlock put into hurting those _things_ just to save him, after all this time searching frequency after frequency to hear his voice again, to phone him, after killing so many...

“John,” he whispers.

But his John is stepping back, head shaking and eyes wide with fear. It makes Sherlock irrationally angry. He wants to erase that emotion away forever and lock it up in a box where it can never haunt John again. Who else does he have to ( _ex... ex_...) eliminate to keep him safe?

“John?” he tries again, “It’s me. What’s wrong, John? Why are you looking at me like that?”

He tries stepping closer, but something seems to be preventing him from doing so. Sherlock looks down at his legs, dried and broken with blood, with disgust. If it weren’t for these limitations he would walk straight to John and shake him by the shoulders, observe what distresses him. Then he’d ( _ex... ex..._ ) get rid of it.

His John is frozen, hand twitching for the gun (but why? There is no enemy here, the only one here is Sherlock and he knows him...)

“What is the matter with you?!” he snaps, losing patience, “What’s happened, John? Are you alright? Did they hurt you?”

Unlikely. If they had shot him... John would be dead and that is unacceptable.

( _Ex... ex... ter..._ )

“Stay away from me!” John points his browning at him and Sherlock feels the cold wave of betrayal, of shock.

 _See, Sherlock?_ The voice that has whispered to him for these past few (months, years) weeks taunts him. _Caring is not an advantage. See how love makes you weak. This is your final proof._

( _Ex... Ex... ter... ex... ter...)_

The Doctor groans against John. Sherlock bristles at the sight of him so close to John, that stupid alien that abandoned John in the desert. When the Doctor seems to regain coherency, he too begins to back up towards the wall, fear and hatred mixing in his actions.

“Open the door!” the Doctor shouts.

“It’s locked,” Sherlock snaps. “Now tell me what’s going on. What have you done to John? Why is he frightened of me? He knows me.”

“What?” John spits out, “No, no, I don’t. I don’t know any _Daleks_ in person unless you count the lot that murdered Clara!”

“Daleks?” _Think, observe, see the facts, the fear, the muddled and blurred days—no, no, delete, deletedeletedelete (Ex... ter... min...) DELETE!_ “What are you, daft? I’m Sherlock!”

The gun clatters to the ground. John is shaking. “No... no... you’re... you’re lying...”

“It’s me,” he says again. His mind races with possibilities of why John doesn’t recognize him. Did the Daleks change his face when he was being tortured? ( _Metal razors and knives, all pointed deliberately at his face, coming closer and closer until he can see the tips of the blade just before the pupil of his eyes, and him screaming out a name, the only name he can think of—_ ) No, he would have remembered. Impaired memory? Was John injured before he arrived here—?

He tries to move closer again but the Doctor steps in front of John, absolute hatred on his face, “No. Don’t come near him, you monster.”

“I am not a monster,” Sherlock snaps, “now let me see John—”

“You don’t remember, do you?” the Doctor ignores him, his voice as obnoxious as Sherlock thought it would be. “Haven’t you put it all together yet, Mr. Holmes? I’m sure you have. You are a genius after all. Your subconscious probably picked up on it. That’s why you sent those human puppets after John, because you needed him. You wanted them to bring you to him before the cult of Skaro could use him. Because he reminds you that you’re human. But you blocked it out of your mind, you convinced yourself that John was in danger instead and you kept calling him but every time you did only screams would come out... you didn’t remember what it was to speak like a human yet...”

“No... no, I escaped the Daleks, I heard about their plans... I ran and hid...”

( _“Don’t do this, you can’t do this, YOU CAN’T DO THIS,” he roars, fighting back as he stares at the empty shell of a Dalek body armor and the metal instruments they will use to pry his brain out. “I’m human!” he shouts again when he is strapped to the table, fire burning in his eyes. He thinks of his blogger, of his flatmate waiting back in London. “I’m human! John...! John...! JOHN!”_

_Delete. Delete it all.)_

“That’s why they wanted me to kill you. They couldn’t control you. They didn’t understand how their perfect creation, their secret weapon against their greatest enemy, me, could go against its basic function. They couldn’t comprehend why you kept murmuring the same name day in and day out, kept screaming out—”

( _“The experiment refuses to cooperate. It is clinging to those human emotions. It wants a human designated as ‘John Watson.’”_

_“The subject has destroyed eight fellow soldiers already. It will exterminate us all if this continues. What are our orders? What are our orders?”_

_“Seek out the human. Seek out the Doctor. We will ask him to save us from this abomination!”_ )

“They wanted to build something with enough intelligence to defeat me. So they looked for a genius, someone who could do the impossible. Sherlock Holmes was a genius...” the Doctor says cruelly, “and Daleks need genius.”

“No,” delete this, delete it all ( _ex... ter... min... ex... ter... min..._ ), he’s human, he knows it, John knows it, his John—

The Doctor pulls a small mirror from his pocket, flashes it towards Sherlock so that the reflection stares back.

Sherlock looks.

A Dalek looks back.

-

“When you have eliminated the impossible all that remains, however improbable, is the truth.”

How he hates those words now.

-

Sherlock howls as memories come rushing back ( _pain, loss, no, still human, cling, John, yes, there is John, keep John—_ ex... ter... min...— _no!_ )

It hurts, everything hurts and he’s on fire. Why does he keep these emotions when they hurt so much? Why does he care what this insignificant human and the Doctor think? The Daleks are the higher form, the perfect form. If he was capable of being glad, he would say that he is proud to be one. Yes.

In fact, it hurts too much to look at the human. It’s a stain, a blot against the perfect world and it makes him... makes him...

Delete.

He has to “ _Exterminate...!_ ” He has to “ _Exterminate...!_ ” or the pain won’t stop, it won’t stop why can’t he stop screaming, just shoot, just shoot, _just shoot him—_

_-_

“John, run!” the Doctor gets the door open with his sonic, rushing out and stretching out his hand.

But John isn’t moving. He’s frozen, still staring at the Dalek in shock, unmoving. The Doctor can’t lose him too. He moves to pull John away but the Dalek overrides his screwdriver’s settings, slams the doors shut just as his fingers reach for him.

 “No!” The Doctor roars, slamming on the doors with his fists.

Just outside, the other Daleks begin to regain movement, begin to stir... they hear the Doctor...

-

“ _Ex... ter... min... ate...!_ ” he cries out.

The human’s eyes shut close, accepting death—wait, no, unacceptable, NO, stop!

Silence. Then...

Oh god (he’s never prayed to God before, it’s always been so absurd. But now, when the absurd has happened, when he can’t go back, he prays. How fucking ironic) what has he done?

His human’s eyes are still closed, there is a burnt mark on the door where the blast missed him and yet his stupid human didn’t move, didn’t even try. But why, what sort of stupid idiot would—

“Oh Sherlock,” his human weeps, “I’m so... so... sorry...! Sherlock, I’m _sorry!_ ”

The Dalek with no name feels something quiver inside him. How... odd. Illogical. Why does it hurt again, only deeper, much more? Why does he long for the same reaction? Why does he wish to touch the human, to whisper... to whisper...?

Oh yes. He remembers and now he knows. He wants to reach out with his hand and feel John but, wait, he doesn’t have arms anymore, does he? He can’t touch anyone ever again (and now he wishes that he had hugged him, even just once, to remember his embrace.)

“ _I... am... a... machine... John..._ ”

“No,” his blogger shakes his head, “No, no, no, you’re not. You’re the most _human_ human being that I know and that is the truth.” He’s shaking, shaking so much but he refuses to look away from the lens and the Dalek that was Sherlock feels something warm trickle down.

(Can Daleks cry?)

“It’s going to be okay,” his John lies, hands reaching out to touch the dome of his cold metal armour, the scope holding his eye piece. “We’ll take you back with us to London, we’ll change you back. It will be better, I know the Doctor can fix this.”

“No, I can’t,” is the quiet answer.

-

John turns and sees that the doors have been opened again. The Doctor is glaring at Sherlock, all painted in gold and silver. Even among Daleks, Sherlock has a crisp appearance that draws attention to him. He hates the chains that bind Sherlock to the spot and the damaged platform that prevents him from moving.

“Doctor,” John glances nervously behind him, seeing the other Daleks slowly begin to stir. “What do you mean, you can’t?” He asks quickly.

The Doctor’s features soften with pity when he looks at him. “I mean that it’s impossible. Sherlock Holmes is gone. This is a Dalek and we can’t risk the world by letting him out, even if he seems sane for now.”

John stares at the Doctor incomprehensively before he blurts out an enraged, “ _What?_ No, you can’t do this, you can’t judge him for what’s been done against his will. It’s not right—”

“And would you have me risk all of the people in London by letting a Dalek live with you? Is that what you want? We can’t let them get away. They’ve killed people. This one will too. Daleks aren’t worth saving.”

“Well, Sherlock is!” John shouts. His fists are clenched, he can’t believe the Doctor’s response (and yet he can, oh the soldier in him understands and agrees with every statement but John doesn’t give a fuck anymore. He’s the one who made the stupid wish for Sherlock to come back. This is his fault. All of it and he’ll be damned if he can’t fix it, even if he has to save Sherlock himself—)

“It’s fine,” the Dalek in question tells them. “I must have expected this possibility... after all; I do have a bomb counting down. It’s set to destroy the entire prison and every Dalek in it... including me.”

John falters.

“I’m sorry... what?”

The Dalek continues in his mechanical tones, but John can hear the snappish tone in his head as if Sherlock still has his human throat, “Don’t be stupid, John. I kept remembering... and I made fail safes, different plans in case it wasn’t possible to change me back. Then I blocked them from my memory... forgot them. I have a bomb rigged to go from the first moment that you entered the prison. If you could save me, you would just free me now and go. There’d be no problem. If not... well...” John knows that Sherlock would smile bitterly here, “then I’d get rid of all your Dalek problems for you.”

He’s back on that street again, watching Sherlock on the roof. He’s back to holding the phone to his ear, trying to stop Sherlock from jumping with words alone.

“No, I won’t leave you!” John protests.

“There’s twenty minutes on the timer. You’ve wasted enough time. Doctor, take John and go,” Sherlock says.

“Absolutely not!” John fights back as the Doctor tries to subdue him with the sonic screwdriver, “Don’t you dare, Sherlock Holmes. I won’t live without you again!”

He punches the Doctor, shoves him out of the white room just as he nicks the sonic from the Doctor’s hands. Then before the Doctor can act, he locks the door of his own accord, makes sure that the sonic keeps the door bolted indefinitely.

“John, what... are... you... doing...?” Sherlock demands. “Leave... me! I... am... just... a... Dalek!”

“ _No, you’re NOT!_ ” John roars, “Now shut up and let me make my own decisions! Friends protect people, remember? I won’t let you die alone.”

He glowers at the lens, wondering if Sherlock understands, hoping that the Dalek won’t override the door lock and push him away.

The lens focuses and refocuses but the door remains bolted shut.

“Stop, John Watson, you can’t do this!” the Doctor is shouting, banging on the steel doors that separate them. His voice is muffled and carries all the power and rage of the oncoming storm... and all of the grief. “I just found you again, I _can’t_ lose you too!”

“Doctor, just leave. I’ll be fine. _You’ll_ be fine,” he adds lightly because that’s what the Doctor does, isn’t it? Find someone else? Another replacement? What is ordinary John compared to a long line of extraordinary companions?

“Please…. You were the one who understood me, the darkest parts of me. I didn’t want to leave you. I didn’t want to watch you die from your silly bullets. I didn’t want to see you become me. Don’t make me watch you die now. Not for this.”

John’s eyes widen but he doesn't move away from Sherlock.

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” he says numbly, “but this is _my_ choice this time. I choose this.”

“Death with a monster?” the Doctor snaps, “Don’t you remember who they killed? What they took away from me? From you?”

Not for the first time, he feels disappointment. “Is a Dalek that wants to be human really such an abomination?”

“Yes!” the Doctor snaps, “Because he’s not human anymore. He can’t be and the Dalek part of him will soon take over. John, you’re risking your life for something that isn’t Sherlock anymore!”

“Then I’m fine. Just go,” John dismisses him.

“Watson—”

“I’m not _abandoning him_ like you will so just _GO!_ ”

There’s nothing but numb silence.

He hears footsteps running away.

-

They stand in the white room together, waiting for the final seconds.

“You fool,” he says, “I wanted you to live... I wanted you to live forever...”

“Well,” John tries to smile, “that’s a very stupid wish. No one lives forever, Sherlock.”

“You could.”

They laugh hesitantly at those words, or at least John does. This body doesn’t let him. Sherlock will never truly laugh or cry or feel anything again.

John crouches down with the screwdriver, begins to unlock the chains so that they all away from the metal body, clatter to the floor in pieces. He wants to ask the point of this procedure but he doesn’t. What does it matter? Sherlock wants to watch John for as long as possible, engrave the determined wrinkle of frustration on John’s brow in his memory.

“Can I see you?”

The question startles him.

His human brushes a hand against the lens once more. “Can I see your form inside? Just this once?”

Sherlock stills inside his metal body.

“Yes...” he quivers, “Yes, you may.”

The metal armour separating him from the outside world clicks open, slowly introducing him to the fierce brightness of the room. For the first time in his body, he is seeing the world. His eyes (just one now) stings and he can make out John standing in front of him.

John’s hands reach out and gently he gathers Sherlock’s tiny form up in his arms. He falls to his knees, forehead touching the space above Sherlock’s eye.

“I love you,” John’s voice cracks.

The creature that is Sherlock stills, slowly trembling in the igniting air. There’s so much to say as the seconds die. He wants to say so much. ( _I do too. Always. From the first day. I jumped for you. I stayed away for you, killed for you. I called out for you, clung to your name, even when they wanted me to forget, to change. I knew you. I always did. John, John, you are undeletable, John, John, Johnjohnjohn...!)_

But if this is the last time he’ll say it then...

“ _John_ ,” he speaks, hating the crass weakness, the vile tone of his body, “ _John... I_ —”

The timer stops.

They go up into glorious smoke and ash.

**-**

Elsewhere, the Doctor hesitates just a few meters away from his TARDIS.

_(What are you turning into, Doctor?)_

He should go back. Maybe there is a way to change Watson’s friend back. Maybe he’s evolved, gone beyond what it is to be Dalek into something better. Maybe... maybe he can have people on the TARDIS again, if he just goes back, stops the bomb before it’s too late, everything can be like it was...

But a Dalek can’t exist like that, with emotions warring with its true nature. None of them can be allowed to exist, not even one. Just the risk of it alone would be catastrophic... who knows what would happen if Watson wasn’t there to stabilize him...?

_(Since when is killing alright with you?)_

They stare at him, his past companions, with accusations in the air. What right does he have to judge who lives and dies? What if he’s wrong? And oh Rassalon, he has been wrong so many times. Every time he is wrong, so many people die.

_(Is a Dalek that wants to be human really such an abomination?)_

“No,” he whispers, a memory of the ‘last Dalek’ reaching for the sun and the girl he aimed a gun at shining in his mind. “No... It’s not.”

He turns back and...

The prison explodes.

 _Coward,_ the Doctor hears in his mind as tears stream down his face, _a coward every time._

-

There is a grave, a shiny one still well-kept and always decorated with while lilies and a skull (much to the horror of other families and people who walk by.) It used to be a lonely one, not much different from the others, all black and dreary with a single name.

Not anymore.

It reads as ‘SHERLOCK HOLMES AND JOHN WATSON – WHO DIED HUMAN.’

Nearby, a blue box vanishes.

-

_“Your past companions... what happened to them?”_

_“Some of them... left. Some got left behind. Others... died. And some...” the Doctor pauses, remembering his twin and his bad wolf on a beach, remembering a redhead who wouldn’t leave her husband, remembering a Dalek who was (is) human and the broken man who refused to leave him. “Some chose love.”_

**End: Love is (not) a lie**

 


End file.
